Projections and Expansions Writing in English (WE) for...

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Projections and Expansions

Writing in English (WE)

for Double Majors

(Wolfgang in der Wiesche, “Ask for Discount”, 2013, acrylic paint and mixed media)

Week Two: Parataxis and Hypotaxis

a) Our Next Task: The Top Slice of Bread in the Sandwich

b) Taxis

1. Parataxis

2. Hypotaxis

3. Embedding is NOT Taxis

c) Taking Your Reference and Making it Introduce Your Data

e) My Homework, Your Homework

f) References

1. Our Next Task: The Top Slice of Bread in the Sandwich

Before we look at LAST week’s homework, let me say something about NEXT week’s homework. Now

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that we’ve got the meat to make our “English/Non-English/English” sandwich, our NEXT task is to

provide a thin slice of bread for the top.

Consider the identifying caption BELOW Wolfgang’s painting: “Wolfgang in der Wiesche, “Ask for

Discount”, 2013”. Suppose we want to move this to the TOP of the painting and turn it into a sentence.

We want to introduce the painting with as much information as we possibly can:

a) WHO did it.

b) WHEN it was done.

c) WHAT it’s called.

and maybe even WHATit’s made of and WHY it has that name! As we saw last week, we could do this

clause by clause, like this:

a) Wolfgang in der Wiesche, a German abstract expressionist, painted it.

b) It was painted in 2013.

c) It is titled “Ask for Discount”

d) It’s made of acrylic paint and mixed media (phogoraphs, pencil marks, Chinese printed paper, etc.)

e) “Ask for Discount” is one of many pieces of text having to do with advertising which is found in the

painting.

f) Wolfgang is having some trouble selling his paintings because they are very expensive!

Can we put that all in ONE clause complex? Of course we can. But it’s not going to be pretty....

“Wolfgang in der Wiesche, a German abstract expressionist, painted this painting, it was painted

in 2013, it is titled “Ask for Discount”, it’s made of acrylic paint and mixed media (phogoraphs,

pencil marks, Chinese printed paper, etc.), “Ask for Discount” is one of many pieces of text

having to do with advertising which is found in the painting, and Wolfgang is having some

trouble selling his paintings because they are very expensive!”

You can see that this way of doing things treats each and every piece of information the same. It’s just a

list of clauses.

But suppose we do this:

“This acrylic and mixed media painting, which was done in 2013 by the German abstract

expressionist Wolfgang in der Wiesche, is titled...”

(How would you FINISH this clause complex? Do you want to end with the price of the paintings or with

the way in which Wolfgang combines text and pictures?)

You can see that by doing it his way we not only make it easier to read, we also make it easier to write.

First of all, it’s clear to the reader what the MAIN point is (not Wolfgang, but his painting). Secondly, it’s

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clear to us, the writers, what we want to say next: we want to talk about the price of his paintings, or

perhaps we want to talk about how he makes them out of text and images.

THAT’s our next homework task. That is, we’re going to take your reference and turn it into a single

clause-complex that will be a nice, thin slice of English over the “meat” that you found for your

homework last week. This single, thin slice of English will make it clear, in a single clause complex, what

the main point of the text is and how you are going to develop the text in the rest of your sandwich.

2. Taxis

Consider the following text from So-jeong, one of our Spanish double majors in the Breakfast class.

La vida es oportunidad, aprovéchala.

La vida es belleza, admírala.

La vida es un sueño, hazlo realidad.

La vida es un reto, enfréntalo.

La vida es un deber, cúmplelo.

La vida es un juego, disfrútalo.

La vida es una promesa, realízala.

La vida es tristeza, supérala.

La vida es una canción, cántala.

La vida es una lucha, lídiala.

La vida es una tragedia, encárala.

La vida es una aventura, desafíala.

La vida es suerte, apuéstala.

La vida es demasiado preciosa, no la destruyas.

La vida es vida, lucha por ella."

-Madre Teresa (1910~1997) (2012, 82 page)

Now, So-jeong has made things a little difficult for us. First of all, her homework isn’t really finished.

Compare what she’s got with the reference I gave you last time:

“Ассоциативная теория представляет дело чрезвычайно прямолинейно и ясно: связь

между словом и его значением есть простая ассоциативная связь между двумя членами.

Ребенок видит предмет, например часы, слышит комплекс звуков «ч-а-с-ы», между тем и

другим у него устанавливается известная связь, достаточная для того, чтобы, услышав

слово «часы», ребенок вспомнил предмет, который связан с этими звуками. По

образному выражению одного из учеников Г. Эббингауза, слово так же напоминает по

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ассоциативной связи свое значение, как пальто напоминает его владельца. Мы видим

шляпу, мы знаем, что эта шляпа такого-то, и эта шляпа напоминает нам человека.” (“The

associative theory presents the matter in a way that is exceptionally straightforward and direct: the

connection between a word and its value is a simple associative link between two parts. The child sees an

object, for example a clock, and hears a complex of sounds “«ч-а-с-ы» [that is, “,часы” the Russian

word for clock, spelt out—DJK], and between the one and the other a certain link is established that

suffices for the child on hearing the word “часы” (viz. “clock”—DJK) to remember the object that is

linked with these sounds. In the picturesque expression of one of the students of H. Ebbinghaus, the word

reminds us through this associative link of its value in much teh same way as an overcoat reminds us of

its owner. We see that hat, and we know that the hat belongs to somebody, and this had reminds us of that

person.” 1984: 319)

Vygotsky, L.S. (1984). Collected Works (in Russian). Moscow: Pedagogika.

You can see that there are a couple of important differences:

a) I’ve got a translation; she’s just left it all in Spanish.

b) I’ve got the date and the page number at the end of the translation; she’s got a date and a page number

but it’s backwards: (“82 page”).

c) I’ve got a reference for my reference list, so that the reader can, at least in theory, find the exact

quotation. She’s got a book, but she’s missing the book’s author (it’s NOT Mother Teresa), the publisher

and the city, so there isn’t any way to track down the exact quotation. So there’s no way for us to turn her

reference into the kind of introductory slice that we just made for Wolfgang’s painting: we can say WHO

said it, but it’s hard to say WHAT it is, and WHY it matters. Poor Ms. Choe’s on her own, and those of us

who don’t know Spanish cannot help her.

There is something very good about Ms. Choe’s work though! It’s a perfect example of taxis. Let me

show you, with my bad Spanish, two possible ways of translating it:


a) “Life is opportunity; seize it.”

b) “Since life is opportunity, seize it.”

These two ways of translating are not the same.

Which treats “life = opportunity” and “seize it!” as equal? Which treats them as unequal?

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Which LINKS the two parts of the complex in a chain but allows each to “stand alone”?

Which BINDS them by making one structure subordinate to the other?

Which is reversible? What happens if we say “Life is opportunity, since pursue it”? Is it right or wrong?

We’re going to give these two very different relations very similar names. They are both tactic relations.

But one is paratactic (equal, like paragraphs) and the other is hypotactic (unequal, like “hyperactive” and

“hypoactive”, or like a hypermart and a hypo-dermic needle).

Here’s a more difficult example from our Brunch class. Another Spanish double major, Ms. Yang

Eunyeong (henceforth YEY), offers us this, from the great Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia-Marquez:

“Un hilo de sangre salió por debajo de la puerta, atravesó la sala, salió a la calle, siguió en un curso

directo por los andenes disparejos, descendió escalinatas y subió pretiles, pasó de largo por la Calle de

los Turcos, dobló una esquina a la derecha y otra a la izquierda, volteó en ángulo recto frente a la casa de

los Buendía, pasó por debajo de la puerta cerrada, atravesó la sala de visitas pegado a las paredes para no

manchar los tapices, siguió por la otra sala, eludió en una curva amplia la mesa del comedor, avanzó por

el orredor de las begonias y pasó sin ser visto por debajo de la silla de Amaranta que daba una lección de

aritmética a Aureliano José, y se metió por el granero y apareció en la cocina donde Úrsula se disponía a

partir treinta y seis huveos (sic) para el pan.”

YEY’s translation is this:

“A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living-room, went out into the street, continued

on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the

Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendia

house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlour, (?) hugging the walls so as not to stain

the rugs, went on to the other living-room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along

the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave an

arithmetic lesson to Aureliano Hosay, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where

Ursula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make (??) bread.”

It’s an excellent translation (though not perfect...whose is it?). YEY includes a little pronunciation lesson

(“Hosay” instead of “José”). But you can see that where Gabriel Garcia-Marquez uses very strict parataxis

at the verb group level, YEY’s translation includes a hypotactic phrase “hugging” in the long list of verbal

groups. This means that the comma is a little misleading here—it makes the reader think that “hugging” is

pretty much the same as “crossed”, and it really isn’t.

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How could we change this? (Easily!)

So—parataxis and hypotaxis. They occur at every level of writing right up to the clause-complex (that is,

the orthographic sentence). We find them in words (“living room”, “street”, “steps”), groups (“crossed the

living room”, “continued on a straight line”, “went out into the street”), phrases (“down steps and over

curbs”) and clauses (“passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson

to Aureliano Hosay” and “went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Ursula was getting

ready to crack thirty-six eggs for the bread.”

Let’s look at them one by one.

2.1 Parataxis

We said that parataxis can exist whenever we have complexes: words, groups, phrases, and clauses.

Words: Life is opportunity, beauty, and sadness.

Groups: Life is a dream, a duty, and a debt.

Phrases: Life comes with opportunity, with beauty, and with sadness.

Clauses: Life is a song; sing it.

I think you can see that in each case, we put things together on an equal footing: words with words,

groups with groups, phrases with phrases, and clauses with clauses. We don’t go around writing that “Life

is opportunity, a dream, comes with beauty and life is a song, so sing it”. Parataxis means balance; it

means that like goes with llike.

(Can you put the WHOLE text into a single clause complex using word parataxis? What about group

parataxis? And phrase parataxis? How about clauses?)

Now, what that means is that when we put clause with clause, BOTH clauses are independent. Like this:

Life is a song; sing it.

Life is a song; therefore, let us sing it.

Life is a song, and so we sing it.

Mr. Choe Yeyeong, over in the Brunch Class, is studying Camus. Here’s what he has:

Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J’ai reçu un télégramme de l’asile :

《 Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués. 》 Cela ne veut rien dire. C’était peut-

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être hier. (“Today, mommy died. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I got a telegram from her nursing

home.《 Mother died. Funeral tomorrow. Condolences. 》 That means nothing. It could have been

yesterday.” [Camus, 1971 : 9] )

Parataxis or hypotaxis? Why?

(Can you translate the following—paratactically?)















La vida es vida, lucha por ella." (Mother Teresa, 2012: 82)

2.2 Hypotaxis

But suppose we DON’T want to put things together on an equal footing. Consider the following:

“Because life is a song, sing it!”

These two clauses go together, but they’re not equal. One part doesn’t stand alone. We can’t grammatically

write:

“Because life is a song. Sing it.”

Of course, I just DID write it. But when I did, I was not writing written English. I was writing speaking:

“Sing it!”

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“Why?”

“Because...life is a song!”

We can’t grammatically write:

“*Life is a song, because sing it”.

Of course, I just DID write that too. But it’s not grammatical: * indicates that something is not

grammatical!

Why aren’t these two clauses equal? Well, because one of them creates the conditions for the other, and

the other is the main point.

(Which is which?)

Let’s have a look at YEY’s example again.

“A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living-room, went out into the street, continued on

in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the

Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendia

house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlour, (?) hugging the walls so as not to

stain the rugs, went on to the other living-room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went

along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave

an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano Hosay, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where

Ursula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs for bread. (Garcia-Marquez, 1972: 110-111)

YEY has a problem. Garcia Marquez has given her a long list of paratactically linked verbal groups. They

are all equal, and their listed in the order they happened, so we get to follow them like the trickle of blood.

It’s all very effective.

But the trickle of blood doesn’t just come out, cross, go out, continue, go down, climb over, pass along,

turn corners, make a right angle, go under, and cross through. It does all of those things, but when it

crosses through the parlor, it acquires a kind of mind of its own. And so the process of crossing through

the parlour has a HYPOTACTIC clause:

“...crossed through the parlour” (How?)

“hugging the walls” (Why?)

“so as not to stain the rugs” (Oh, I see!)

You can see that the relationship of “hug” to “cross” is not at all the same as the relationship of “cross” to

“go in under”, “make a right angle”, “turn corners” and so on. One way this is signaled is by using

TENSE—it’s actually “went in under”, “made a right angle”, and “turned a corner”, but it’s “hugging”. The

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technical way to say this is that “went”, “made”, and “turned” are all FINITE verbs—they have been

limited, bounded, defined, brought down from the heavenly world of eternal meanings and made into

mortal words which live and die just like humans. But “hugging” and “to stain” are not finite at all. They

are used as unlimited, undefined, pure lexical meanings. They are DEPENDENT on “crossed” for their

tense, and they really cannot stand alone as a result.

We MIGHT make them a little more independent, like this:

“The trickle of blood, which hugged the walls so as not to stain the rugs, crossed the parlor.”

We might even do this:

“The trickle of blood, which did not want to stain the rugs and so hugged the walls, crossed the parlor.”

But you can see perfectly well that although “hug” and “stain” now have their own TENSE (their own

FINITE), they don’t have their own participants the way the main clause does. So they are not equal. So

we cannot call them paratactic clauses. They are hypotactic clauses.

Song Jiyeong, over in Brunch, has this, from the Farsi poet al-Shirazi:

نى ضای آدم ب ک اع د ی کرن ی په نش در ک ری ک ز آف دچو ی وهرن ضوى گ ه ع ار آورد درد ب روزگ

ر ضوها دگ د را ع مان و ن رارت ز ق نت ک گران مح ی دی غمی ب

د شای ه ن امت ک ند ن ه آدمی ن

(“The son of Adam are limbs of each other/Having been created of one essence/When the calamity of

time effects one limb, the other limbs cannot remain at rest/If you have no sympathy for the troubles of

others you are unworthy to be called by/the name of a Human”)

Parataxis or hypotaxis? Where...and why?










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-Madre Teresa (1910~1997) (2012, 82 page)

Can you put this all hypotactically? Like this:

“Life is opportunity, which we must pursue.

Life is a beauty, which...”

2.3 Embedding is NOT Taxis

Let’s look at another example from our Brunch Class. This one is a picture, from Mr. Kim Taedong, in

Political Science and Diplomacy:

Now, actually Mr. Kim just has to talk about the

picture. He has to introduce the picture (next

week) and to elaborate the picture (the week after

next).

But Mr. Kim is a very hardworking and forward-

looking fellow. So to get ready for these tasks,

he’s translated the headline and the caption that

goes with the picture, like this:

"Park in the position where Kim Ilsung stood 61

years ago.”

You might think this is a good example of

hypotaxis. But it isn’t! Why not?

Think a minute. Hypotaxis is when you’ve got a

main clause and some hypotactic clause. We can

see the hypotactic clause (“where Kim Ilsung

stood 61 years ago”). Where’s the main clause?

There isn’t one! It’s a headline, and a headline is

usually something like a title. It’s not a clause, but

noun group.

A noun group is a kind of “expanded” or “extended” word: “Park”. In this case, the “head” of the noun

group is the head of our country—President Park. Everything else in this noun group is a kind of tail—a

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post-modifying tail. ‘

“In the position” is a phrase. Just as “"Park in the position where Kim Ilsung stood 61 years ago” is a kind

of BIG, EXPANDED word, “in the position” is a kind of shrunken clause. It’s a clause that has had it’s

main gut removed—its verb. Instead of a verb, there is a preposition “in”, which means something like

“located in”. And the phrase as a whole is just a tail in the nominal group in which “Park” is the head. But

what comes nex?

What comes next is a whole clause! But it’s not a ranking clause; that is, it’s not the sort of thing we could

use for parataxis or even hypotaxis. Just as the phrase has given up its rank as a phrase and has

become just a kind of postmodifier in a nominal group, this ranking clause has agreed to serve as a

postmodifer of the noun in the phrase!

“Park” (Where?)

“in the position” (Which position?)

“where Kim Ilsung stood 61 years ago” (Oh, THAT one!)

Now, because “where Kim Ilsung stood 61 years ago” is really just a postmodifier of an element of a

postmodifier”, it’s not functioning as a clause—it’s not an independent proposition. So we will call this

embedding.

Can you render this ENTIRELY as embedding? Like this:

“Life is opportunity we pursue. Life is beauty we ...”














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3. Taking Your Reference and Making it Introduce Your Data

We said that a title is a NOMINAL GROUP. Compare:

“A Fool's Life “ (Kim Hyeonji, Breakfast)

(What is the head of the nominal group? The modifier? Is it a postmodifier or a premodifier?)

“Practical German for Students” (Kweon Minjeong, Breakfast)

(What’s the head of the nominal group? Modifiers?)

Teatro Español de la A a la Z (?). (Kim Hyemin)

(Can we put this in English for Hyemin?)

<(?) Refugee Relief of FC Bayern: Millions of Donation, Training Camp, Support for Children : press

releasing (?)

(Can we fix the puncuation? Also, the preposition ‘of’ is overused here.)

“CLash Between Demonstrators and Police on “Day of Wrath” in Egypt” (Jo Aram, Breakfast).

(Notice that we capitalize all the “Open Class” words but not the Close Class words...unless they are more

than five letters!)

Now you can read the Arabic Newspapers (in Arabic).

(Notice that THIS title is different—it’s a clause. So what do we do about the capitalization?)

Poseidon and Other Short Prose (Kim Ujeong, Brunch)

(Why don’t we capitalize “and”? Why not capitalize “Short”? What about “Other”?)

Woman in the men`s society (Elana Kang, Brunch)

(Capitalization...and pluralization!)

100 years of solitude (Yang Eunyeong, Brunch)

(Capitalization! How do we manage capitalization with NUMBERS?)

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(<In Shaa Allah> Nam Yuran, Brunch)

(Punctuation?)

The Basic Book for Learing Arabic(in Arabic).

(Spelling...and article!)

Beijing Language University Chinese Course (Lee Donghyeon, Brunch)

(Article?)

L’étranger (Choe Yeyeong, Brunch

(Translation?)

Bani Adam, (Song Jiyeong, Brunch)

(Translation?)

日本語原書理解 (Sohn, Jihye, Brunch)

(Translation?)

Kolliyaat-e Shams-e (Kim Hyeonjin, Brunch)

(Translation?)

Lebendiges Deuntsch Fuer Studendten 2 (Kim Su-a, Brunch)

(Spelling, Translation!)

Can you think of titles for these?

Love is the way and the path, our prophet.

Of love we are born, love is our mother.

Our mother, love, is hiding in our veil,

Hiding from our unbelieving nature.

"到底什么是幸福？谁能说清楚？没有人能说清楚有多少钱，有多大权力算是得到了幸福；也没有人能说清

楚有多少儿女，有多少朋友算是得到了幸福；更没有人能说清楚有多少感情算是得到了幸福。因为幸福完

全是个人行为，永远没有统一的标准，也没有不变的标准。幸福其实就是一种个人的感觉，我们每个人都

可以得到幸福，只要你心中有幸福的感觉。“

“What exactly is happiness? Who can explain this clearly? No one can clearly say what amount of money

or power are necessary to have achieved happiness, and nobody can say clearly how many sons or

daughters, or how many friends, are necessary to have achieved happiness; still less can anyone say

clearly how much feeling is necessary to have achieved happiness. Because happiness is a personal

affair, there will never be a common standard or an unchanging one. Happiness is actually a kind of

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personal sensibility; each of us can achieve happiness, so long as one has a sense of happiness in one ’s

heart.”

Notice that one possibility is simply to choose a noun: “Love” or “Happiness”. Another possibility, as

we’ve seen, is to elaborate the noun a little:

“Love: the mother who hides from us”

“Happiness: a personal matter and an individual sensibility”

And finally, we can use a whole clause as a title, like this:

“Love is .....”

“Happiness is...”

However we do it, we have chosen—we’ve chosen the “main idea” which we are going to elaborate.

Now, imagine you are going to INTRODUCE your text. As we said, we want to do it in a SINGLE CLAUSE

COMPLEX—a very thin slice of bread. Not only that, we want that clause-complex to have only ONE

Subject—only ONE participant who is responsible for the success or failure of the introduction. That

participant is going to be the main idea of the text.

“In this poem, by the Farsi poet Al-Shirazi, love is presented as a way, a path, a prophet, but ultimately...”

“In this short text from a beginning Chinese book, ....”

Here’s how one of our classmates did it already!

This is an excerpt from an interview with a welfare officer at Gwanak-gu as part of our group project last

semester for researching general childcare policies of South Korea.

It’s good! Our classmates has “set the scene” (Gwanak-gu), created characters (the welfare officer and

some students from HUFS). But...she hasn’t really posed a problem. And there ARE some interesting

problems with childcare policies—and childcare politics—in South Korea. How could she make THOSE

problems the MAIN SUBJECT of this introductory clause?

Now, as you can see—you have to have last week’s homework done in order to do this week’s

homework. For Breakfast Class, that’s no problem—everybody’s in. But for Brunch Class, we’ve got

problems: Shin Juyeong, Yang Hyojin, Yi Jinyeong, Yi Hyeonjeong, Jeong Myeongjin, Jeong Minhui, Jo

Seongyeon, and Choe Hyeonguk.

Of course, you COULD wait ANOTHER week. I don’t grade anything until Week Five. But that’s a really

bad idea...the more you wait, the more the work piles up. And the more the work piles up, the less help

you get here in the agenda and on the e-class.

So make sure you get it in—by Saturday, so I can put it in the agenda on Sunday.

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5. My Homework, Your Homework

Next week our task is just that: create a single clause complex, whose subject is the main idea you are

going to elaborate, and introduce your text. Now, I said I’d do an example every single week, and I will.

Here it is:

In the following short passage from his late lectures, a very simple theory of word meaning is critically

presented the dying L.S. Vygotsky.

“Ассоциативная теория представляет дело чрезвычайно прямолинейно и ясно: связь

между словом и его значением есть простая ассоциативная связь между двумя членами.

Ребенок видит предмет, например часы, слышит комплекс звуков «ч-а-с-ы», между тем и

другим у него устанавливается известная связь, достаточная для того, чтобы, услышав

слово «часы», ребенок вспомнил предмет, который связан с этими звуками. По

образному выражению одного из учеников Г. Эббингауза, слово так же напоминает по

ассоциативной связи свое значение, как пальто напоминает его владельца. Мы видим

шляпу, мы знаем, что эта шляпа такого-то, и эта шляпа напоминает нам человека.” (“The

associative theory presents the matter in a way that is exceptionally straightforward and direct: the

connection between a word and its value is a simple associative link between two parts. The child sees an

object, for example a clock, and hears a complex of sounds “«ч-а-с-ы» [that is, “,часы” the Russian

word for clock, spelt out—DJK], and between the one and the other a certain link is established that

suffices for the child on hearing the word “часы” (viz. “clock”—DJK) to remember the object that is

linked with these sounds. In the picturesque expression of one of the students of H. Ebbinghaus, the word

reminds us through this associative link of its value in much teh same way as an overcoat reminds us of

its owner. We see that hat, and we know that the hat belongs to somebody, and this had reminds us of that

person.” 1984: 319).

....

Vygotsky, L.S. (1984). Collected Works (in Russian). Moscow: Pedagogika.

What about the ....? Well, I’m going to explain what the passage means and why it is critical in both

senses—it is a way criticizing the theory and it’s very very important. But that’s what we’ll do next week.

6. References

Halliday, M.A.K. with Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar.

(Fourth Edition) London: Routledge. pp. 429-460, 556-592.

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